Thought of the Day: C is for....

With the recent One Day International series between Australia and South Africa now over, Australia has moved to the number One ranked ODI team in the world and are in prime form ahead of the World Cup.  Apart from a few issues.

Firstly, the World Cup doesn’t start for nearly 3 months, so a lot can change in that time.

Secondly, though Australia did win, it hardly was convincing as a settled unit and neither was South Africa.  Both sides dropped their best players at different times, making it more of a test to see if certain players could play certain roles.  This wasn’t about obtaining the all-important “M” in modern sports; Momentum.

Given that it was more of a test and learn series, there can be little confusion as to the small crowd sizes, which seems to have taken up a lot of the medias attention.

Some in the media were quick to defend the series, and by extension Cricket Australia, pointing out the high TV ratings for the contests.

Nice and smug there Malcolm

TV ratings are great and important, particularly given that is where Cricket makes most of its money, but crowd numbers indicate public interest and excitement about the sport.

The head of Cricket Australia, James Sutherland, has come out and launched an investigation into the small crowd numbers, though (as adroitly pointed out by Titus O’Reilly) this is a little like a murderer investigating his own crime.

If CA are serious about engaging the public and ensuring interest in Cricket is something more than an alternative to repeats of M*A*S*H on a Wednesday night, it would seem that looking at the positioning of the game would be a great starting point.

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Eyes you could swim in for hours>>

That is, what does the “C” in “CA” stand for?  At the moment it isn’t Cricket, so is it…

Confusion

Sorry, I just love using this one.

The latest ODI series was played in the context of nothing with most of the best players unavailable.  Why would fans be interested?  What does it mean?

There is a lot of cricket being played in Australia this summer, not least the Matador Cup (already finished), the Big Bash League, another ODI series against England and India and a Test series against India…before the World Cup begins.

What are fans to think?  There is almost too much going on and none of it seems to relate to each other.

I have put forward my thoughts on making the Cricket Calendar more relevant to fans before, but perhaps this could be expanded to include short form games in the same way as the Womens Ashes; so that all games are worth points that lead to an out-right trophy that can be easily understood?  Too simple?

Calendar

Some pundits are claiming that poor attendances are due to too much cricket being played, specifically citing that most fans aren’t used to Cricket (particularly ODI Cricket) in November.

Well, the A-League didn’t even exist 10 years ago & fans certainly weren’t used to having soccer on mid-week, but they have gotten used to it.

Make the game accessible and relevant, and the fans will turn up anytime of year.  They certainly seem happy enough to switch on.

Thanks again, Malcolm.

Children

Despite being unable to set a sporting Calendar or Competition that fans can follow, CA certainly are good at getting children into the game.

Census data shows that 951,933 people participated inorganised Cricket in 2012-13, which is a startlingly high number.  Regardless of everything else it is inept at, Cricket Australia is good at getting young people interested in Cricket, even if this seems to equate more to TV audiences rather than match attendance.

Unfortunately pocket money doesn't stretch this far anymore.

Complacency

In all, CA seems like it really doesn’t give a shit about the game, fans, or a long-term future.  They are making a ton of cash for doing a crap job, so why start caring now?

This attitude seems to have carried over to the national Test team, supposedly the pinnacle of Cricketing excellence in the land, who not only lost a Test-Series comprehensively against Pakistan, but did so while picking players who wouldn’t normally get a game.

Not naming names. (photo courtesy of Getty Images)

The performances of young players coming through is also evidence of a lack of proper investment.  While Australia has been able to produce good fast bowlers in the last ten years, the number of spin bowlers and specialist batsmen (roles that traditionally require more time to develop) has declined.

Dave Warner is an obvious exception to this rule, but he is an exception to all rules, starting as a T20 slogger and developing himself into a successful test opener.

So what has Cricket Australia done to help produce better players or attract more to the game?  Nothing it seems.  Young Australian sportsmen are leaving Cricket to play other sports in greater numbers than ever, after all, why would you play a sport with a confusing schedule in front of 14,000 people when you could play 22 games a year in front of 40,000?

Just ask him.